What could be more experimental than me writing a straight up love song?
BRADFORD COXWhat could be more experimental than me writing a straight up love song?
BRADFORD COXI like my solitude, and I’m a strong-willed person; I’m a very hard-to-be-around person sometimes, I guess.
BRADFORD COXI’m not meaning that in a disrespectful way; you go where people want to hear your music. So if that’s where people want to hear me play.
BRADFORD COXSometimes, I do have something to say, so I’ll sit there and I’ll write a song to someone – and then I just throw it away because it makes me cringe.
BRADFORD COXA song like “Walkabout”, it’s totally imitative. The goal of that song was to make people happy, and I’ve never really made a song to make people happy before.
BRADFORD COXYou gotta have friends, and it’s really hard to have friends that don’t operate on the same schedule as you or do the same kind of things you do, because they don’t understand it.
BRADFORD COXThere’s not like this separate caste system where it’s like, “I’m the musician, you’re the audience. Never the two shall meet.” It was a case where it was like, “Hey, you know what? I’m on your level, man.”
BRADFORD COXI always write the first and last song of an album first, and then the middle just kind of happens.
BRADFORD COXWhen I started having a couple of beers and loosening up, I realized how many years I had wasted going back to my hotel room alone when I could have gone and just had a beer or two.
BRADFORD COXYou think about people like Elvis, Kurt Cobain, or the Beatles, who grew up without privilege and needed a certain validation through peoples’ acceptance, or admiration from their peers. And money is part of that, but it always comes too late.
BRADFORD COXPeople say ‘I don’t want to die alone!’ But you know what, honestly? I don’t want to die with a bunch of people looking at me.
BRADFORD COXThey had it at the library and I always thought that was interesting, even when I was into punk and stuff. Just the history of storytelling and the amount of melancholy a lot of old music has.
BRADFORD COXI don’t like the sound of my own voice. And, for people I don’t know, their impression of me is what they read on the internet, and they’re so far off a lot of the time.
BRADFORD COXI like playing at public schools. I like when there’s more of a diverse audience. I’ll play wherever people want to hear my music, and I’ll be glad and grateful for the opportunity, but I’d rather not play for a bunch of white privileged kids.
BRADFORD COXWhen I got hit by the car, I became depressed. As a result, I’ve been on antidepressants and I feel like I have no sexuality left. People complain about that side effect, but I love it. I feel outside of society.
BRADFORD COXYou’re not necessarily listening to the band and thinking about the lead singer, or the story of the group, or the context or the mythology of the group. You’re just listening to the song and whether or not it has a hook.
BRADFORD COX